


Forms In The Darkness

by Maiika



Series: Old West AU [3]
Category: Dragon Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 08:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiika/pseuds/Maiika
Summary: 13yrs before Raditz entered West City, one disgruntled man, two angry teens, and a confused kid were all that was left of a burnt-up town.  After their lives were changed by a drastic, unexpected event, they banded together to form an outlaw group whose name would gain notoriety in the West- The Saiyans.





	Forms In The Darkness

Flames everywhere.  Agonized screams.  Piercing wails full of despair.  A clear cry for help.  A rapid succession of gunshots, making him jump out of his skin at every lethal pop.  
  
Raditz bolted upright, panting in bed.  He calmed his rapidly beating heart by wringing his fingers through the soft sheets at his sides as he slowly came back to reality.  In the places he wasn't gripping the sheets, they were clinging to his damp skin.  He was freezing, but the room was warm and humid.    
  
A groan startled Raditz, but when he twisted around, he recognized the smaller, black-haired form lying at his side and let out a long sigh as he dragged a hand through his thick hair.  He wanted to punch his little brother.  Kick him in the head.  It wasn't right that he should be stuck with Kakarot.  It wasn’t right that both their parents were gone instead of him.  
  
Deep breathing drew Raditz's eye to the bald head laid on a pillow beside Kakarot's sleeping visage, looking like the only pale spot of light in the dark room.  Nappa.  He'd made it too, along with Vegeta, who seemed to be the only one unaffected by the traumatic incident at the hometown the four of them had somehow narrowly escaped.  They were all that was left.  
  
"Another nightmare?" taunted a voice from the darkness.  
  
Raditz flinched.  "No.  It's nothing."  
  
He knew Vegeta would exploit this as a weakness, or mock him for it, at best.  It was bad enough he had to be displaced like this, dragging along his useless ten-year-old brother, but doing it with people he couldn't trust made matters worse.  Always on guard.  Never safe.  Nowhere to turn if he wanted to escape them all but the cold, hard wilderness, where animals and savages were waiting for a dumb teenager like him to stumble blindly into their grasp.  
  
"Doesn't look like nothing."  
  
Raditz narrowed his eyes and glared through the thick darkness.  "You can't even see me."  
  
"Fine.  Didn’t _sound_ like nothing, then.”  
  
“Let it go,” Raditz sighed.  “Please.”  The last thing he needed right now was Vegeta going ballistic on him.  That tacked-on ‘please’ was a necessity to avoid grating on Vegeta’s wound-up nerves which he’d learned to use well these past few days.  
  
“We can use the kid,” Vegeta said.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“What Nappa said earlier.  The only way we’re all going to survive out here and stay out from under Frieza’s radar is to always keep moving.  We need to steal in order to do that.”  
  
Raditz cocked his head.  “So what’s that have to do with Kakarot?”  
  
“We’re not going to coddle the little pest!” Vegeta snapped.  “If he wants to survive like the rest of us, he has to do his part.”  
  
“I never suggested,” Raditz drawled through clenched teeth, “that we should _coddle_ him.  I just want to know what you’re planning.”  
  
Vegeta sighed.  “Nappa knows of a train loaded with gold bricks. Comes by every day.”  
  
“A train?”  
  
Raditz felt his heart pumping.  He didn’t know whether it was more out of fear or excitement, but the idea of robbing a train had him wide awake in the middle of the night.  He heard Nappa stir while Kakarot began snoring lightly, but he didn’t bother looking at them.  Nothing to see in this dark, desolate location in the middle-of-nowhere anyway.  
  
“We’ll stop it with a distraction and one of us will take out the guards while the other two load up the loot.”  
  
“What am I doing?” Raditz asked warily.  
  
“You’re with me, loading the loot.”  
  
Raditz raised a brow.  “So Kakarot...?”  
  
“Is the distraction.  With that innocent face, no one will want to hurt him, and with that _hair_ , no one can miss him.”  
  
“How would he get hurt?”  
  
“He’s going to stand on the track ahead of the train,” Vegeta said indifferently, “and scream for help to force them to put on the breaks.”  
  
“You don’t think that’s a little obvious?”  
  
“All I care is that the train stops.  If they come to conclusions _after_ they’ve been robbed, that’s _their_ problem, isn’t it?”  
  
“And how’re we going to get away?”  
  
“We’ll have horses waiting out in the brush.  We’ll jump on them and ride for the nearest shelter.”  
  
Raditz scratched his head and grimaced.  It seemed plausible, he supposed.  He’d never done as much planning before, but he figured he might as well leave that up to Vegeta.  Still, as he ran the scenario in his mind and pictured the events unfolding, one piece seemed to be missing.  
  
“People will be all around Kakarot if he’s the distraction.  How do we get _him_ out of there?”  
  
Raditz swallowed just as he noticed the deep breathing of a child in slumber which he’d become accustomed to seemingly coming to a halt.  Silence filled the air.

“Do you even want to?” Vegeta said.  “We should leave him behind.  The kid’s baggage, anyway.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Raditz said, suddenly feeling uneasy, even though what Vegeta said sounded tempting.  “You just said we can use him.  He can be more helpful than a hindrance.”  
  
“Aside from being a _kid_ and a fucking liability, the kid doesn’t follow one damn order!  I had _half_ the food I should’ve today, thanks to that selfish pig!”  
  
Raditz frowned.  “I don’t know if I can get Kakarot to agree to do this.”  
  
“Tell him he does it,” Vegeta growled, “or he’s on his own.”  
  
Raditz exhaled slowly.  He couldn’t help thinking about his recently deceased parents, and how they’d feel about knowing Raditz left their younger son for dead.  Because going out on his own, at Kakarot’s age, _was_ a death sentence.  And knowing Kakarot, if given the choice, the dumb kid would choose rebelling over hurting somebody, even if it meant his own demise.  
  
“Fuck the kid, Raditz.  You said yourself you don’t want him around,” Vegeta said with a yawn.  Raditz frowned as the sound of Vegeta's sheet batting the air broke the staunch silence in the room.  “Go back to sleep.  We’ll pack our shit and leave before dawn.”  
  
Reluctantly, Raditz slipped beneath his sheets to rest his head once again on his still-moist pillow.  He pressed his lips together as he stared up at the ceiling, his gaze gradually adjusting to the darkness until he could make out the vague outline of a wood beam above him and the contrasting subtle lightness coming through the frame of the boarded window just below it.  He tried to convince himself that it would be better for Kakarot if he went his own way after this job.  It was easy to believe that he, Vegeta and Nappa would be better off without the nuisance being dragged along, too.  Kakarot was a dumb kid.  Too impulsive.  Too risky to keep around.  Too young for the life of a bandit, which was what Raditz’s life was about to become.    
  
With a sigh, Raditz turned his gaze to Kakarot, whose face was now visible to Raditz’s keener eye.  To Raditz’s surprise, Kakarot’s round eyes were not shut as they should’ve been, but open and glistening at the corners.  Raditz drew a trembling breath, cutting his teeth into his bottom lip as his eyes rolled toward the ceiling.  Shit.  The kid had heard him.  And all that shit...ah, he didn’t mean all of it.

Kakarot had value somewhere, Raditz was sure.  Deep down, he knew he was just bitter with his naive kid brother for being a poor substitute for the parents Raditz really could’ve used right now.  Nappa was a poor substitute for _any_ adult leadership, and Vegeta was ill-tempered and volatile, not to mention barely a year older than Raditz.  They were going to have to be tough as nails to survive this lifestyle.  Raditz knew his brother was only going to be a weakness to drag him down, but he also knew that wasn’t the kid’s fault.  
  
With a growl, Raditz rubbed a hand up and down his face.  “Ah, go back to sleep, you little shit.”  
  
“R-Raditz-“  
  
“I said go to sleep!  You’ve got a job to do in the morning.”  
  
“A job?”  
  
“Yeah, and it’s really fucking important.  You do it well, and we won’t get rid of you.”  
  
“You mean it?  You won’t?”  
  
“What’d I say?” Raditz snapped.    
  
“You wait and see!  Im goin’ to do my job better than anyone!”  
  
“Good.  Now go to sleep.”  
  
Raditz didn’t have to wait long.  After a few moments of heavy silence, Kakarot was already snoring.  The kid had a knack for not letting things bother him for long.  When Raditz’s head sank deeper into his pillow and his mind began to feel the prickly buzz of slumber, across the room, Raditz heard a scoff.  
  
“Moron,” Vegeta said.  “That really took a lot of hard convincing from you, didn’t it, Raditz?”  
  
Raditz drew a deep breath.  “The kid’s gullible.  He'll buy anything I say.”  
  
“Hm,” Vegeta hummed sleepily.  “Maybe we should keep him around after all."

Raditz worked his jaw and nodded.  “We should.”  
  
“He’s right about one thing - we _are_ going to do this better than anyone.  One day, Frieza will pay for this and regret the day he ever fucked with the Saiyans.”  
  
“The Saiyans?” Raditz asked wearily.  
  
“That’s what they’ll call us.   _That’s_ who they’ll fear,” Vegeta said.  “We won’t be just any bandit lowlifes.  We’re greater than that.”

“The Saiyans,” Raditz repeated sleepily as he closed his eyes.  

He could hear Vegeta grumbling to himself, but Raditz knew the words weren’t meant for him.  He could rest at ease now, knowing he wasn’t at risk of betraying what his parents would’ve wanted for him and Kakarot.  Kakarot would stay with them and hopefully learn to be useful and work as a team.  Tomorrow, they would be The Saiyans.  

But for now, as they drifted into slumber for yet another night in the shelter of this abandoned shack several miles outside their devastated town, Raditz knew they were still nothing more than vulnerable forms in the darkness. 


End file.
